hello! i've struggled to find good quality photos of them, but i would love if you could tell me anything about my favourite bug, the hummingbird hawk-moth! they would flit around all the plants where i lived in southern france, and were very friendly
on an aside from this, i have been searching for the name of another friendly bug from there - a little fluffy golden fly, looked like a puffball with barely visible eyes and probuscis, very small delicate wings. they'd often fall into the pool while trying to have a drink in the summer, and their "fur" would get wet and weigh them down
Hi! There are a couple species of sphinx moth in your area that could be called hummingbird moths, though the most common is the Eurasian hummingbird hawkmoth, Macroglossum stellatarum. Like a lot of sphinx moths, they're day-fliers, so they're often seen feeding at flowers and mistaken for hummingbirds. Not sure what else you'd like to know, but we can admire some photos of an adult and a caterpillar!
Lovely :) As for the flies, I'm thinking it could either be a golden dung fly or some type of bee fly, but it's hard to say without seeing what you saw, I'm afraid.